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Leonard Fournette is signed, sealed and one special delivery for LSU

St. Aug's RB Leonard Fournette signs to play at LSU 8

St. Augustine running back Leonard Fournette kisses his mom Lory during the national signing day ceremony at St. Aug in New Orleans Wednesday. Feb. 5, 2014. Fournette is the nation's most heralded recruit. (Photo by David Grunfeld, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)

The first phone call on Wednesday's college football signing day came at 6 a.m., and it wasn't a sunrise salute for St. Augustine running back and LSU commitment Leonard Fournette.

On the other end of the phone was Alabama associate head coach Burton Burns, a former St. Aug and Tulane assistant. He tried to throw a recruiting Hail Mary.

Is Leonard sure that he wants to sign with LSU?

"I expected it," said Leonard Fournette Sr., father of the most sought-after high school recruit in the nation. "They told us from the jump coaches would be calling us to the very end."

Then came a call from Texas running backs coach Tommie Robinson.

Same question as Burns. Lofting a prayer.

The phone rang a few more times from other coaches, all taking their last shot at inquiring if Fournette had a last-minute change of direction in the commitment he made to LSU on Jan. 2 on national TV during the fourth quarter of the Under Armour All-American game.

Nope.

With help from his parents and his high school coach, Fournette, who has been pursued by recruiters since he was a high school freshman, stiff-armed all the last-minute attempts. He and 11 other St. Aug players signed scholarships during a ceremony in the school gym just before lunchtime.

Fournette could just as easily gone to Alabama, with its three national championships in the last five seasons. But his strong relationship with LSU assistant and St. Aug graduate Frank Wilson and the love of Tiger Nation ("I must have stopped and taken 1,000 pictures with them," he said) swayed Fournette.

"It was very hard picking LSU over Alabama," he said. "I could have gone to Alabama, played with the other seven running backs they have, but I wanted to go to a school where I could create our own tradition of winning championships."

Cake, punch, laughter, tears and a big helping of relief were served for all the St. Aug signees and their parents, but nobody got chased longer and harder by college recruiters than Fournette.

He tried to approach the final steps of his recruiting marathon with his usual cool until he realized the enormity of the moment.

"When I woke up, it felt like a regular day," Fournette said, "until 9 or 10 o'clock when people called my phone sounding more excited than me. It was like they were signing the papers. It's a big deal, especially for my father and my mother, who did a great job with me as young man."

You didn't have to engage in conversation with Fournette's parents to understand they could finally exhale, that all the craziness was coming to a grinding halt. You could see it in their tired smiles.

Saint Augustine's RB Leonard Fournette signs with LSUSt. Augustine running back Leonard Fournette signs to play football at LSU during a national signing day ceremony at St. Aug. in New Orleans Wednesday . Feb. 5, 2014. Fournette is the nation's most heralded recruit.

Everyone around Fournette - family, friends, even the mail carrier who delivered 40 to 50 pieces of love letters from college coaches per day - now have a chance to put their feet up.

"It's been a lot," said Lory Fournette, mother of LSU's next Heisman Trophy candidate. "The post people knew us. If some of the mail ended up at someone else's house, they'd come to us and say, `This is y'all's.' We were still receiving mail from colleges yesterday (Tuesday).

"I'm so happy this is over. I'm happy for Leonard, my husband and I, my younger son, my two daughters. I'm happy and proud about the decision Leonard made."

When a player of Fournette's stature gets recruited, everyone around him gets swept up in the hurricane, especially the recruit's head coach. It's only at the end, like on signing day, that the coach - in this case St. Aug's Cyril Crutchfield - can stop and marvel what a wonderful ride it has been.

Crutchfield became the Purple Knights' coach two years ago before the start of Fournette's junior season. On the very first day of practice, Crutchfield was excited and nervous all at once.

How good was this Fournette kid? And if he's that great, will he be coachable, will he be open to the ideas and schemes of a new coach?

The answers: The best Crutchfield has ever seen and very coachable.

"At the end of that first practice with Leonard, I walked off the field and told one of my assistants that, `I feel like I'm Allstate'," Crutchfield said. "He said, `Allstate?' I said, `Yeah, I feel like I'm in good hands.'

"Leonard moved so gracefully. Everything about him was with so much precision, but it also seemed effortless. The thing that surprised me the most was how hard he worked."

Crutchfield said he's going to miss reviewing game film containing Fournette's jaw-dropping plays.

"This year head-and-shoulders was his best year, and the only way you could truly enjoy the runs he put together against the type of competition he faced was to watch the film. Me and our coaches would keep backing the film up on his runs just to watch them over and over. We'd sit there and say `Wow.' "

Crutchfield will also miss coaching a player who was always willing to be coached, which is sometimes hard to find in an elite player like Fournette.

"Leonard was so receptive to change, to new ideas," Crutchfield said. "He embraced a new coach like me and never skipped a beat. This year, he'd offer ideas and sometimes I used them and sometimes I didn't. It showed his maturity as someone who could find neutral ground.

"The last two years with Leonard was truly remarkable, a time none of us will ever forget."

Neither will Fournette. But with his 6-1, 225-pound frame filling out the purple Nike LSU sweatshirt at the signing ceremony, it's obvious he's already looking forward to his next big thing.

"Nothing is given to you, you have to earn everything," Fournette said. "I'm going there as a regular freshman and working my way up."